Sort of Pie for February

While we were in Florida recently, one of my top priorities was to sample the regional specialty Key Lime Pie. Unfortunately, I didn't quite have the time to scour every nook and cranny for a great piece of pie and that is sad - because the one we tried our very first night in town was pretty awful. (This photo, by the way, was not the awful one and I did not taste this particular pie.)

The up side is that I'm serving a lime ice cream on the menu right now that I swear is quite frankly the S_ _ _T . . . or the bomb, whatever. It is like the smoothest, creamiest key lime pie filling you've ever tasted and since I like that particular pie partially frozen anyway it works out. So I may have been disappointed but I am certainly not deprived.

I took some home yesterday and sandwiched a scoop between two ginger snap cookies. It was pretty good, but actually I think that if I had made a crumb crust from the cookies and molded the ice cream into a pie, it would have been even better. I'm not big on frozen cookies so while trying to soften them enough to eat, the ice cream melted a little too much and it turned out to be a fairly messy experience - which is a no-no in my book.

See, I do not like to do battle with my food -- so every dessert that I test for work I have to actually eat (not just taste) the final, composed dessert with all its components to make sure it will be accessible to the diner. Granted, there is a time and place for playing with food and really digging in. But, I'd rather the flavors and textures not have to compete in a wrestling match if you know what I mean.

ANYWAY . . . I did, however enjoy the presentation of the ice cream sandwiches on my new, adorable lime green and robin's egg blue vintage melamine dessert plates from http://www.vindeelyndee.etsy.com.Thanks Marnie! I adore them!

So for this month's pie of the month I'm giving you the recipe for Key Lime Pie Ice Cream, which is delicious served as is or you can try my suggestion with the gingersnap cookie crumb crust ( we serve it with pineapple beignets which is pretty good too.)

8 large egg yolks
1 cup sugar
zest and juice 6 regular limes (not little key limes) to equal 6 oz lime
juice
4 oz unsalted butter
1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup sugar
4 cups heavy cream
2 TBS vodka

Combine the first five listed ingredients in a large sauce pan and whisk over medium heat until it thickens and just begins to boil. Strain the resulting lime curd through a fine mesh strainer. Add the remaining sugar, cream, and vodka and chill thoroughly before churning in an ice cream machine. When it is done, either pour into prepared pie crust (topping with sweetened whipped cream if you'd like) and freeze or just freeze in a container with a lid.

Notes:

• Slice the pie while frozen and then allow the individual pieces to sit at room temp for about 5 minutes before serving.
• Please do not be tempted to use any kind of bottled lime juice, even if it says fresh and you bought it at Whole Foods or even if it says it is "real Key lime juice" - the fresh squeezed regular supermarket limes are far superior and you need the zest anyway. Bottled juice is what gives a lot of pies that strange, off flavor.
• To zest, I use a Microplane and I strongly suggest you get one if you don't have one already.
• Cuisinart makes a fairly affordable ice cream machine ($50) that works great, especially for home use, but we used it at the restaurant with great results before we finally got our kick butt $1500 Italian gelato machine.
• If you think making your own ice cream is too much trouble, please just try it some time and you will be amazed at how easy it is to make something so much better than you can buy and that you can trick out however you want with all kinds of ingredients and flavorings.
• Why vodka? Because vodka does not freeze it keeps the ice cream from turning rock hard and you won't have to let it sit on the counter for twenty minutes before you scoop it. Commercial ice creams have all sorts of weird stabilizers in them to keep them soft.

Love Love me do little

As with most holidays, I tend to build up in my mind all the fabulous things I will make and do to make the day special . . . and then the precious day arrives and I'm scrambling around just to get through the day in one piece. Well, for once, I think I'm okay with that.

No, I did not make the paper chains I bought cute paper for the other day to hang all over the house and no, I did not make the French Silk Pie I thought would be the perfect over the top chocolate Valentine's Day dessert and no, I did not figure out how to make the needlepoint "LOVE" bracelet that I tried to do but eventually gave up on and no, I did not sew the velvet backed vintage valentine sachets I had conjured up in my mind to give out to friends and family. I mean, what kind of super woman do I think I am?

But, after going in to work this morning to finish up my prep for my dessert special at the restaurant tonite, I did get to spend the rest of the day with my two beautiful, spirited, and loving little boys -- and on top of that, I did take a nap that I desperately needed and I did make cut-out cookies. Granted, I was finishing them up around 7pm so essentially that's what the kids had for dinner and for the next hour they were running around the house like the sugar crazed maniacs that they were.

I actually saved some of the better ones to ice with a little more precision after they'd gone to bed, but I'm throwing in the towel at this point. Instead, I've decided to take a few minutes to appreciate the things and people in my life that make it what it is - far from perfect, but worth cherishing all the same. So please indulge me ( I never did the 25 things about me list on Facebook and trust me this list will not be 25 things long - it's past 10 pm and I'm eager to get in bed with my book.)

So here goes . . . Loves of My Life:

• My husband Andy, who is, as I write this, slaving away at work feeding romantic dinners to over 200 people and who probably doesn't realize how awesome and amazing I think he is
• the fact that my sons Finn and Graham are so willing to smother me with hugs and kisses throughout the day - I know it won't last forever
• flip-flops
• a hot cup of English Breakfast tea with milk and sugar
• my sweet baby Lu - our 12 year old chocolate lab Talullah who can barely walk these days from excruciating arthritis, but still always greets me at the door when I come home and lays by my feet in front of the fire
• cheeseburger, french fries, and a vanilla malt - when I was pregnant with Finn that's all I ever wanted to eat and I still think it's one of the best meals ever
• Santa Fe, NM - I'm really not a big fan of the cold weather but this place from May until November is truly heaven on earth
• pies, tarts, cookies, cake, ice cream, custards, mousse, chocolate bars, . . .
• my family - mom and dad, three big brothers and three amazing sisters in law
• Andy's family (I know, isn't that lucky for me)
• my new Janome sewing machine which I have barely used but it is there like a promise of all the things I will someday have time to create
• my antique drafting table that my good friend Quentin gave to me and which kind of legitimized my new role as a crafter
• speaking of friends, my friend Allison who has known me and loved me since the eighth grade - she lives in L.A. and we never get to see each other and only talk on occasion, but just knowing she's there makes me feel better about myself
• the South Carolina coast - we've been to the beach with Andy's family the past few summers and it is by far the greatest place to vacation with kids I've been to so far . . . no frills, no fuss - just time to hang out and live in the moment
• hiking - hopefully Graham will be more in to it this summer so we can enjoy how lucky we are to be able to be 20 minutes from incredible forest trails, mountain streams, and high dessert vistas without having to carry him the whole way
• Dwell magazine, Readymade magazine, and yes, I confess, Martha Stewart magazine - I can't help it, those people have so many good ideas
• family meals - the four of us rarely get to sit down all together . . . I'm more and more impressed all the time that my mom succeeded in getting us all to the table together every darn day
• really soft sheets
• the Texas hill country

All right at this point I could just keep going on and on, but who wants that? So this list is by no means complete and a little all over the place, but it's nice to take a minute to remember what's important. Since I've started blogging I sometimes get overwhelmed by the other blogs I frequent - how can they do so much, write so well, take pictures of it all and still be a mother of three and hold a job?

Honestly, I don't really get it. My kids are nuts, my house is usually this side of a disaster, and I'm not performing at my job as well as I'd perhaps like to - but for today, I'm giving myself a good ol'fashioned break. It all starts with loving yourself, right?

Pie Lovers Unite!

I'm really not one to join groups on Facebook and usually ignore any and all requests to be a member of much of anything. However, out of random curiosity I just did a Facebook group search for "pie lovers." Result: 447 groups meeting that criteria!! Is that insane? I knew lots of people share my adoration for crisp, flaky, buttery crust and a parade of fillings, but I sincerely did not realize so many people want to talk about pie or read what other people say about pie. That's AWESOME! Now I feel justified in my desire to publish a cookbook/coffee table book about the pie phenomenon. If only I had more time to make actual pie instead of daydreaming about it.

On a non-pie sweet note, I decided on my special Valentine's Day dessert for the restaurant . . .

Wildflower Honey Souffle Glace
Warm Raspberry Crush
with Blood Orange and Vanilla Bean
Citrus Lace Tuile

I tried to use several passionate words in the description . . . wild, flower, honey, warm, crush, blood, lace . . . did I get my point across? And I know what you're thinking - what, no chocolate? Well, since we already have two killer chocolate desserts on the menu right now, I needed to go in another direction. I'll report later on how it actually turns out.

And while we're thinking pink, thought I'd mention that we're now on round #2 of drops for "pink eye". Graham had it last week and now Finn and, as you can imagine, trying to get drops in a little guy's eye while he lunges and jerks in protest is a formidable task to say the least. But, other than that, we've all been fairly healthy this winter - knock on wood - and it's almost mid February. I don't care what Mr. Groundhog had to say, bring on Spring!

Lifestyles of the Rich and the Not So Famous

We returned yesterday from Naples to a hail storm and 30 mph winds here in Santa Fe - kind of a brutal homecoming. I could easily get used to winter in Florida. They were having record lows and it still seemed like summer to us. We wined, we dined, we slept in a crazy comfortable hotel king sized bed and, oh yeah, we did do a little bit of work. Our seven course meal we cooked (priced at a mere $10, 000 per guest) went off without a hitch. Here's me and Andy in our host's incredible, brand new kitchen. He's making gnocchi . . . I'm just looking pretty I guess.

The Naples Winter Wine Festival is a charity event to raise money for at risk children in the Naples area. Celebrity chefs and their entourages (Emeril being the only true celebrity as far as I'm concerned) are invited from all over the country to cook and schmooze with the filthy rich. Needless to say, we had a great time and drank a lot of really incredible wines. Andy made a list of most of the best ones we tasted; I just kept going back for more.

As pastry chef, I was only responsible for the last two courses of our dinner:

Tangerine Curd Tart

Caramelized Blood Orange, Honey Sabayon

Pomegranate Sorbet, Fresh Ginger Creme Anglaise

followed by a little plate of Mignardises: Chocolate Peppermint Cookie, Lemon Butter Cookie with Lemon Buttercream, and Mission Fig Almond Pope's Hat Cookie.

It goes without saying that after six other fabulous courses, they just nibbled at the last two but I try not to get my feelings hurt by that. Anyhoo, it was a great experience. This was my first trip out of town without the kids since they were born and I've definitely decided that needs to happen a bit more often. I kind felt like my old self again - not that my new mommy self is a bad thing; it just felt good to realize that I can still be sorta fun and good for a few laughs.

So Valentine's Day is just around the corner - time to dust off the craft table, not to mention decide what pie or other dessert might be worthy of my favorite holiday. Hearts, hearts, hearts! Oh, how I heart hearts!

Choco in Chaco

Front page of our beloved New Mexican reported today . . . "Traces of cacao were found in shards from cylinder jars found at Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico." This means that cacao beans, the pulp of which is fermented and dried to eventually produce cocoa and chocolate, was used in the U.S. several centuries earlier than was once thought.

Chaco Canyon is about a six hour drive from us here in Santa Fe and I have sadly never been to see it. Apparently, it is absolutely incredible: "a multistory pueblo (containing) an estimated 800 rooms, constructed from 860 to 1128 A.D."

Anyway, love seeing news about chocolate as well as pie. Just thought I'd share.

We're off to Naples, FL bright and early and will return in five days with photos and memorable moments from our trip and the Naples Food and Wine Festival. Have a great week!

Search for Best Chocolate Chip Cookie

Whenever I'm asked to make chocolate chip cookies I usually always turn to the tried and true Toll House recipe. Although I do add more salt to the recipe, I've found that it's pretty hard to beat. I love it, everyone else loves it, so why bother creating a new one?

So when I saw this recipe in the New York Times Dining section by Jacques Torres, famed Master Pastry Chef and Chocolatier, I was obligated to try it out. Reaction #1: Andy thought it was the best chocolate chip cookie he'd ever tasted.
Reaction #2: Kids of course devoured them without comment.
Reaction#3: I thought they were great, but I'm still undecided as to whether they were that much better than the standard TH.

I'll admit that I did not complete the 24 hour chilling time called for in his recipe, but I really can't see as how that would make such a huge difference. But I've been wrong before, so I may try it out again. Also, this recipe may require a trip to Whole Foods for the chocolate and perhaps the cake and bread flour if you don't keep that on hand. That may or may not be a big deal for some. Baking cookies is usually a spontaneous activity for me; this recipe perhaps calls for some planning ahead.

So, if you are into chocolate, I should think you'd want to give this one a try. I especially like the sprinkling of sea salt on top of the cookie. You'll be amazed at what salt can do for chocolate.



And if you do try Chef Jacques recipe, let me know what your reaction is. Or if you think you've got a better one, I'm all ears. By the way, when I changed my blog template my comments tag ceased to function. I'm trying to remedy the problem, but it may require some outside expertise since I'm not real hip on writing code. If it's urgent you can always send me an email. Thanks for your patience!